We intend to design, implement and evaluate an exciting experience in rural schools: using cloud computing as a means of sharing, learning and getting the most out of tight IT resources located in a small rural school network in the NorthWest of Spain, Galicia. This will be a pilot to learn the best ways to get cloud computing to be really useful for rural schools anywhere, and we intend to share our results, products and findings with the same spirit we get from others: Open Source.

The main objective of this project is to test a cloud-based solution to provide rich media e-collaborative and learning services to disperse rural school networks.

This objective can be split into the following specific goals:

To design and develop a cloud-based Open Source software and hardware solution suited for kids, teachers and parents in small rural schools.

To test this solution in a real environment with rural schools in our region.

To evaluate the solution from a technical point of view and from our users point of view.

To contribute with our findings to other communities with similar needs (small communities, dispersion, poor bandwidth).

Yolanda Neira, principal of school CRA Boqueixón Vedra, in official presentation event of Rural Schools & Cloud Computing Project to the media, accompanied by Galician ministers of Education and Innovation, and HP representative: video.